Celtic Recipes for Rural Business Success

Celtic Recipes for Rural Business Success is a three-year Programme jointly carried out by the Welsh partner Menter A Busnes and the Irish Exporters Association.

The project has been designed to identify, develop and share best practice in rural based micro enterprise and SMEs within the InterregIIIA regional.

Taking the food and drink sector as a model to analyse, consultants appointed will study a range of small successful rurally based food business, develop a model of success broken down into a range of factors and produce the skills development materials to deliver to companies joining the Programme.

Marketing success factors cover a range of areas including: entrepreneurial traits, management skills, financial management, innovation and skills in product development, branding and promotional skills. Their identification will provide the basis to develop a model of successful management behaviour that will be used to assist micro enterprises and SMEs in the rural food sector.

Bearing in mind that each company presents individual business traits, success factors identified will be tailored and applied to the needs of each company joining the Programme. Barriers that hamper a successful business can be easily and strategically overcome; companies will be given formal training via workshops, one to one management coaching and a business support service provided by their mentor.

Equal opportunities, Environmental Sustainability and ICT are some of the areas that will be approached and assessed at the end of the Programme in term of success and impact. Programme completion date is June 2008.